Politico reports:

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from creating a database of millions of Americans’ private information — including Social Security numbers and citizenship status — saying the administration has fed knowingly inaccurate data to states that are now “actively” and “haphazardly” purging purported non-citizens from voter rolls.

“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote in a 75-page ruling. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

Ruling in a lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters and other advocacy groups, the Biden-appointed judge said the Trump administration’s new system — an updated version of the so called “SAVE” database operated by the Department of Homeland Security — combines citizenship data with information from the Social Security Administration to create a clearinghouse that Congress has expressly prohibited.

Despite deep concerns about the accuracy of the records, Sooknanan said, the administration has shared the database with states.

“Since then, states have run their voter rolls through the modified SAVE system, and some of the Plaintiffs’ members have been wrongfully identified as non-citizens by SAVE, resulting in the cancellation of their voter registrations,” Sooknanan wrote.

The ruling halts a pillar of Trump’s efforts to overhaul American elections, many of which have been tied up by judges who say the administration is attempting to bulldoze through Trump’s preferred voting system without congressional approval — from attempting to coerce states to impose new voter ID rules to constraining mail-in balloting. [Continue reading…]